Facts
The complainant [A.] was convicted by the Cantonal Court of Bern for defamation under Art. 174 of the Swiss Criminal Code. In a letter dated October 23, 2017 to the District Court of Frauenfeld, she had referred to the opposing party 2 [B.] as a "repeat offender".
[A.] had previously been involved as a private prosecutor in a multi-year criminal proceeding against [B.] . [B.] had initially been convicted of fraud by the Regional Court of Oberland, but was subsequently acquitted of all fraud charges by the Cantonal Court of Bern. Instead, [B.] was convicted of other offenses such as attempted extortion, violation of postal secrecy, and forgery of documents.
In her letter to the District Court of Frauenfeld, [A.] referred to [B.] as a "repeat offender" despite her acquittal of the fraud charges. The Cantonal Court of Bern considered this to be defamation and upheld the conviction of the lower instance, but refrained from imposing a penalty due to the prohibition of reformatio in peius.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court considers the conviction of the complainant [A.] for defamation to be in accordance with federal law. The lower instance had rightly determined that the designation "repeat offender" in the context of court proceedings and considering the history between the parties was to be understood as a defamatory statement of fact.
The decisive factor was that [B.] had…